December 15

Opened the institute at 5:45 p.m. and at 6:00 no one was there.  I am amazed I did not have a heart attack.  At 6:10 Ladonna's (accompanist) sister-in-law, Maria, came in and told me that Ladonna was sick and would not be attending. WHAT? I did the only thing I could do besides cry; I called Elder Jackson. He said he would come right over. By the time he got to the institute there were 30 YSAs in the room and about 12 of them had never been to practice before. I vowed during the opening pray and the spiritual thought that after Sunday I would never, ever, ever lead a choir again in Fiji. My nerves are not strong enough.

I spoke to two of the choir members who are faithful attenders about what to do with the new singers.  We decided that I would welcome them and explain the rule about two practices before Sunday morning's practice. I made the announcement. Not a great idea. With Elder Jackson's help they sang beautifully--really beautifully. So I said at the end of the practice, "You sang was so well I think we should suspend the rules if it is alright with those who have been coming to all the other practices." Of course they said it was alright.

Scott bless his heart was sitting in the lounge praying that I would come to my senses and allow anyone who wanted to sing to sing. Some days I hate being a second child of two second children. Keeping the rules and seeing that others keep the rules has been my job since birth. Sometimes it is far better to relax the rules. Notice I did not say forget the rules, but tonight I would have been better off just having fun helping these YSAs learn the songs and feel of the Spirit.

Hairspray was the movie tonight. They loved it. Many had not seen it which is unusual.  Because the only movie DVDs you can buy here are pirated they are cheap so everyone has seen most movies, but not Hairspray. We screen every movie we show and if either one of us thinks the movie is not appropriate for the institute we don't show it. We are picky; no sex, no violence, no wear words, etc.
We had watched Hairspray before several times and felt it was OK, but then when I was sitting with the YSAs watching it, I realized how many subtle and not so subtle sexual references there were I was not happy. Why is it we watch movies and do not notice things even when we think we are watching carefully? I love movies. I love suspending real life for a period of time. I hope that there will always be good clean movies to watch.